Profile

Dr. Douglas Boreham currently holds positions as Professor and Division Head of Medical Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (September 2012 – present) and is a Professor in the Department of Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences at McMaster University (2000 – present). He is also Principal Scientist and Manager of the Integration Department at Bruce Power. Dr. Boreham was an undergraduate student in biology at Laurentian University and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa in 1990. He spent 14 years as a radiobiology research scientist at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

Currently, Dr. Boreham conducts research in Radiation Biology and supervises undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. He has published over seventy-five peer reviewed scientific manuscripts, and has attracted over $10 million in research support and funding since joining McMaster University. His most recent grant ($1.2M) from the US DOE was to study life-time cancer risk associated with medical diagnostic radiation. Dr. Boreham has published research on a variety of topics including health effects and anti-carcinogenic processes induced by low doses of medical diagnostic radiation (CT and PET), radioprotective dietary supplements that prevent age related cognitive decline, radiation therapy predictive assays to identify radiosensitive patients, and developed cytogenetic assays to detect DNA damage and for emergency biological dosimetry.

Dr. Boreham has been an invited speaker around the world and has been featured on television and radio broadcasts including CBC Passionate Eye – “Radiation Roulette,” The Discovery Channel “Curious and Unusual Deaths,” The Nature of Things “Nuclear Neighbors,” and CBC Radio-One. He has won several teaching awards including McMaster Students Union Teaching Award, McMaster President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction, Canadian Nuclear Society – Canadian Nuclear Achievement Award for Education and Communications, McMaster President’s Award for Course Design, the Hamilton Spectator Publisher’s Award for Education, and recently received the Canadian Radiation Protection Association – 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award in Recognition of Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Radiation Protection.

In 2010, Dr. Boreham was awarded the Radiation Research Society – 2010 Mentor of the Year Award for Scholars in Training. In 2011 he was voted “Professor of the Semester in Life Sciences” by 800 first year biology students. He was also the 2012 Canadian delegate for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. From 1995 – 2005, Dr. Boreham owned and operated a 50 acre vineyard and winery on the Beamsville Bench in the Niagara wine region.